UCLA Bruins Win NCAA Championship

On March 26, 1973, the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship is decided as UCLA beats Memphis 81-76.

The win over Memphis in the NCAA Tournament marked the seventh straight National Championship the Bruins had won dating back to 1967, and the end of back-to-back perfect seasons.

The 1973 Championship also marked another highlight in the dynasty that John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins had amassed.

The win also came during UCLA’s record breaking winning streak, which started in 1971 and went through 1974 where the Bruins won 88 consecutive games.

Since the 1973 Championship, UCLA has gone on to win two more NCAA Championships in 1975 and 1995.

They were the NCAA Tournament runner up in 1980 and 2006. They reached the Final Four 18 times, including a 10-year span where they went every year; 1967-1976. Their last appearance came in 2008, when they were making their third consecutive appearance from 2006-2008.

The Bruins have reached the NCAA Tournament 45 times from 1950, including 20 straight years from 1962-1981.

The Bruins made the NCAA Tournament this year adding onto their historic legacy of basketball excellence in Westwood, and are facing the No. 1 overall seed Florida Gators at 6:40 p.m. on CBS.

The "Heidi" Game

On Nov. 17, 1968, one of the worst moments in sports broadcasting took place. 

The New York Jets were facing the Oakland Raiders in an AFL battle. The Jets held a 42-29 lead against the Raiders and seemed to be in good shape.

However, NBC made the controversial decision to switch off the game in the final minutes and start showing "Heidi" instead.

What fans on the east coast missed was an exciting comeback by the Raiders. They scored two touchdowns in the last minute to win the game 43-42.

This game would lead to new measures to make sure nothing like this would happen again.

In the late 1960s, few professional football games took longer than two and a half hours to play, and the Jets–Raiders three-hour time slot was thought to be adequate. A high-scoring contest, together with a number of injuries and penalties for the two bitter American Football League rivals, caused the game to run long. NBC executives had ordered that Heidi must begin on time, but given the exciting game, they decided to postpone the start of the film and continue football coverage. As 7 p.m. approached, many members of the public called NBC to inquire about the schedule, to complain or opine, jamming NBC's switchboards.

As NBC executives were trying to call the same switchboards to implement their decision, the change could not be communicated, and Heidi began as scheduled. The movie preempted the final moments of the game in the eastern half of the country, to the outrage of viewers who missed two Oakland touchdowns that turned the game around.

The Heidi Game led to a change in the way professional football is shown on network television; games are shown to their conclusion before evening programming begins. To ensure that network personnel could communicate under similar circumstances, special telephones (dubbed "Heidi phones") were installed, with a connection to a different telephone exchange from other network phones. In 1997, the Heidi Game was voted the most memorable regular season game in pro football history.